There's also nary a mention about Microsoft's pro-security switch to a walled garden model

Online newspaper Inc. has published a pretty interesting account ripping into Windows RT, which it calls "Doomed". The author, Geoffrey James, has a big warning to business -- "inherently unstable and insecure."

The author lauds Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL) iPad as the new paradigm of glorious computing and security, while lashing Microsoft, writing:

I used to work in an operating system development group. One thing I learned back then is that any OS that allows applications to modify the OS will be inherently unstable and insecure.

Since Windows is designed to allow that to happen, both computer viruses and the gradual "rot" of the software installed on a Windows system are both inevitable. There is no way to fix the problem because it's inherent in Windows's design.
...
I'm a case in point. While I'm still using a Windows machine for most of my writing, I'm serious thinking of "taking the leap" to only using my iPad simply to avoid the support headaches that are inevitable with Windows.

In short, the Surface is doomed because the entire concept behind it is flawed. Even plain Windows is getting so old and creaky that it's getting to be more a bother than its worth.

But the columnist misses (or at least never mentions) that the device he targets in the byline (Surface) is currently only being sold with Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows RT (Surface Pro -- the x86 version -- isn't expected until next month). And not a single piece of traditional Windows malware can run on Windows RT without recompilation, as it runs on a fundamentally different architecture/instruction set (ARM) versus past versions of Windows (x86).

Surface RT can't run traditional x86 malware.

In other words, the columnist's negative experience of getting his laptop penetrated by a "root kit" is drastically less likely to occur in Windows RT, particularly while it enjoys such a peachy (from a security perspective) low market share, compared to traditional Windows.

Another thing the columnist seems to miss is that both Windows 8 and Windows RT Microsoft offer perhaps the biggest pro-security (but anti-openness) shift that has helped protect the iPad -- the switch to primarily using a "walled garden" model of software distribution. In Windows 8 you primarily buy apps through Windows Store. Microsoft verifies each of these apps and can yank any app at any time if it is later discovered to pose some sort of security risk.

Granted, Microsoft does practice a laissez-faire policy regarding Windows 7 legacy software (which won't run on Windows RT, but will generally run on Windows 8) and plug-in based distribution models, such as the Java-based Valve client. In this regard it differs from Apple who strictly prohibits such freedoms. But increasingly from here on out users will be getting their apps from a single secure source -- Microsoft.

Additionally, the apps in Windows 8 are nicely sandboxed. They simply are not allowed to "modify the OS" as the author suggest. Windows 8 and Windows RT have robust protection against traditional attack vectors like memory injection, protections that rival those in the OS X tree.

Some criticisms of Windows 8 have been more level-handed pointing out perfectly valid opinions that many share about places the ambitious user interface redesign may have gone too far. But some criticisms -- such as the argument to buy an iPad instead of a Surface RT because Windows is "unstable and insecure" -- are simply bizarre to the point where they almost appear to be a comedic caricature of misconceptions surrounding the Windows platform.

If you moved from XP or 7 to 8, all your apps are desktop apps. If you don't like Start screen, you can easily change that to classic Start menu.

All the standard features of Windows are there; Control Panel, Programs & Features, Device Manager... last time I tried Linux (briefly), I could not figure out how to install a program. Experience was completely alien to my previous Windows experience. Compared to that episode, moving from windows 7 to windows 8, for me, was just a walk in a park.

I had to purchase a laptop recently (old one finally gave up the smoke one Friday, and I had to remote into work the next Monday) and it had to be a quick purchase. Went to the bane of tech-stores (BB) looked at what they had and even tried some of them out. (They were all unlocked.)

There were a few there with touch screens, but most without. I had played with W8 in a VM for a few weeks before and the non-touch screen versions equally underwhelmed me.

The touch-enabled LTs though ... completely different story. Love the one I got, though I still have to get rid of a lot of bloatware. (Thinking about getting a W8 license/download and going from scratch ... won't have lost anything at this point.)

My main rig will not go to W8 anytime soon, but my file/media server may, since W8 also introduced Storage Spaces that looks to me to be very similar to WHS's Drive Extender before it was removed. (Don't know if the individual drives can be read directly if they are ever unmounted from the space.)

Windows 8 isn't for everybody, nor, IMO, is it for every rig unfortunately. (Removing Media Center from all distro's [irkes] me though.)

{note: reading through this I have to wonder if I stayed on point enough.}